Auditorium Speaker Series

Additional speakers are being added to this series. Please check the Annual Conference Web site at www.ala.org/annual for updates.

ALSC President’s Program Featuring Melba Pattillo Beals

Monday, July 13, 8:00 - 9:30 a.m.

At the age of 15, Melba Pattillo Beals walked her way into the history books as one of the nine courageous students who faced down furious segregationists, the Arkansas National Guard and the Governor of Arkansas in order to integrate Little Rock Central High School in 1957. She has written two bestselling books as a result of her experience, Warriors Don’t Cry: A Searing Memoir of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock Central High School and its sequel, White is a State of Mind: Freedom is Yours to Choose. Beals began her career at the age of 17 writing articles for major newspapers and magazines. She earned a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University and worked as a news reporter for San Francisco's public television station, KQED, and for the NBC affiliate, KRON-TV. Beals has also written numerous articles for periodicals including People, Essence and the San Francisco Examiner and is the author of a primer on public relations, Expose Yourself: Using the Power of Public Relations to Promote Your Business and Yourself, which was an industry bestseller. In 1998, the nine students who integrated Little Rock’s Central High School were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest and most distinguished civilian honor. Beals is currently professor and chair of the Communications Department at Dominican University of California. She and her daughter, Kellie, are writing the screenplay for a feature film based on Warriors.
Sponsored by ALSC Charlemae Rollins Endowment.

Lisa Scottoline

Monday, July 13, 10:30-11:30 a.m.

Lisa Scottoline is the Edgar-Award winning, bestselling author of Lady Killer, Daddy's Girl, Dirty Blonde and many more. She currently has 25 million copies of her books in print in the United States and she is published in 25 countries. Lisa loves her job and it shows in her writing. Her bestselling novels, set in Philadelphia and featuring gutsy and resilient female characters, have thrilled and entertained readers with page-turning action and her trademark wit and humor. Lisa has created an array of unforgettable characters, and continues to add to the cast with each new book. Many of her books feature the all-female firm of Rosato & Associates, while the rest introduce fresh, new, but equally compelling heroines all written in Lisa's unique voice. A lifelong Philadelphian, Lisa still lives in the Philadelphia area and enjoys writing about her hometown city. Sponsored by Macmillan.

Jill Bolte Taylor, Ph.D.

Monday, July 13, 1:30 - 2:30 p.m.

As a Harvard-trained neuroanatomist, Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor spent her life studying and teaching others about the complex beauty of the human brain. But on the morning of December 10, 1996, her life took an unexpected turn: she experienced a massive stroke when a blood vessel exploded in the left side of her brain. In her book My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist’s Personal Journey, Dr. Taylor tells of her unique, and somewhat ironic, journey into and back out of the silent abyss of the wounded brain. The book shares details of her stroke and the eight years it took to completely repair her mind and recalibrate her understanding of the world, according to the insights she gained from her intimate experience with an injured brain. Today Dr. Taylor is a neuroanatomist affiliated with the Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis. She is the national spokesperson for the mentally ill at the Harvard Brain Tissue Resource Center (Brain Bank) and the consulting neuroanatomist for the Midwest Proton Radiotherapy Institute. Since 1993, she has been an active member of NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness). Jill Bolte Taylor shares her story as part of Oprah’s “Soul Series” on XM Satellite Radio (May 12, 2008). Her story has also been featured on the PBS program “Understanding the Amazing Brain” and she was a featured speaker at the TED conference in February 2008. She lives in Bloomington, Indiana. Sponsored by Penguin.

PLA President's Program Featuring Cokie Roberts

Monday, July 13, 5:00 - 6:30 p.m.

Cokie Roberts is a political commentator for ABC News and a senior news analyst for National Public Radio. From 1996 to 2002, she and Sam Donaldson co-anchored the weekly ABC interview program, “This Week.” In addition to broadcasting, Roberts, along with her husband Steven V. Roberts, writes a weekly column syndicated in newspapers around the country by United Media. Both are also contributing editors to USA Weekend, and together they wrote From This Day Forward, an account of their now more than 40-year marriage and other marriages in American history. The book immediately went onto the New York Times bestseller list, following a six-month run on the list by Roberts's first book on women in American history, We Are Our Mothers' Daughters. Roberts is also the author of the bestselling Founding Mothers, the companion volume to Ladies of Liberty. A mother of two and grandmother of six, she lives with her husband in Bethesda, Maryland. Sponsored by HarperCollins.